After fishing all day with few results, Camden Huck of Caribou baited his hooks with suckers and dropped his lines deeper at dark to fish for cusk.
Imagine his surprise when he pulled up the biggest togue he’s ever caught. It weighed 19 pounds, 1.7 ounces, was 37 inches long and won him a first place prize of $1,500 in the Long Lake Ice Fishing Derby last weekend.
Huck was fishing with family and friends all day Saturday on Eagle Lake. He and three others planned to spend the night at his uncle’s camp on the lake, but friends and family were in and out all day.
With six people fishing, there were 30 traps dotting the area in front of the camp, he said. At sunset, everyone else pulled up their traps. Huck left his in to fish for cusk.
The fishing party wasn’t skunked though. Among them, a 5-pound togue, plus a couple salmon and a trout came up through the ice during the day.
Huck checked his flags around 6:30 p.m. and found one up. As he approached the trap, he noticed that he had less than half of the 150 yards of line still on the reel.
It took Huck several minutes to pull the line in. He thought he had a small cusk on the end of it, judging by the resistance he was getting from the fish.
Then he saw it. The big fish flashed its side at the hole opening once. Nighttime made it difficult to see details, but Huck soon realized it wasn’t a cusk. It was a monster togue.
Fortunately one of his fellow fishermen had come out of the camp wearing a headlamp while he was pulling line in, making it easier to see, he said. The fish came through the hole without incident, but the whole thing happened fast, he said.
Huck has been competing in the Long Lake derby since 2016, the last five of which he fished on Eagle Lake. He placed first and third and his father placed second in the togue category in 2019 for a family sweep. He was the only one in his family to place this year. It’s the only fishing derby he participates in, he said.
He’s already thinking about his strategy for next year’s derby.
“I definitely will be fishing for cusk more often,” Huck said.